Free Bandwidth Monitors and Meters

Track Your Internet or Network Data Transfers

Free Internet/Network Bandwidth Monitors and Meters

This page lists free tools that let you monitor how much data you're transferring through your computer/network. It is mainly for people
who use Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that charge according to how much data you transfer per month. For example, at the time this
was written, a US ISP, Comcast, allows its users 250 GB of data traffic per month. Those that exceed that amount of traffic will have
to pay for the excess data transferred. The utilities on this page are primarily meant for those who want to monitor their Internet usage,
for example, to make sure that they don't exceed the traffic limit or to make sure that their ISP is not overcharging them.

(There is also a tool on this page that measures time spent connected on a dial-up connection, for those who need that sort of monitor.)

There are 3 major categories of free Internet
bandwidth monitor/meters listed this page: software that you install on a single computer, and those that you flash into your
router's firmware.

Those who have many computers in the home connected to the Internet through a single router won't find those single computer software tools very useful,
since it will only monitor network activity on the computer you install it on. In fact, even if you only have a computer, but also have other devices that connect
to the Internet like an Xbox360, you will need to monitor bandwidth usage some other way.

For such people, the replacement
router firmware listed on this page may be relevant. They are meant to replace your existing router's firmware (which you
do at your own risk, of course) so that the router can track the total bandwidth usage in the network. This way, you will hopefully
get a better picture of how much Internet bandwidth your entire household is using. (Note: it's also possible that your existing router
already has some sort of monitoring facility, so don't dash out to replace its firmware without first checking its existing features.)
But of course, you can also easily damage your router this way, "bricking" it (rendering it useless), so look before you leap.

Free Internet Bandwidth Monitors or Meters for a Single Computer

This program monitors your bandwidth usage and speed either across all your network connections, or on
a specific network adapter. Reports can either be viewed on your computer, or exported as an Excel file, a Word
file or an HTML file.
It works with dial-up connections (PPP), Ethernet cards, ADSL, cable, etc. You can also set it to alert you if
your bandwidth usage exceeds a certain amount, or if your network connection is down. The software comes
with various network tools, like ping,
traceroute and netstat.

This is an interactive console application that monitors and displays the bandwidth consumed and data transferred
on all network interfaces (eg web traffic, email traffic, ping, and so on). It breaks down the amount of bandwidth consumed
on each interface by the amount received, amount transferred as well as the total. It also calculates things like the average
bandwidth you use. This is a Linux
program.

The Linux Bandwidth Monitor, or bwmon, measures the amount of bandwidth used by you on your computer for each network interface.
It uses a text user interface (via ncurses/curses). As its name implies, it's a
Linux program.

Logtime is a tool for Windows 9x/ME dial-up networking (not broadband) users to measure the time spent (warning:
not data transfered) online. Update: this program has reached its end of life (ie, it is no longer
maintained nor is it available).

DD-WRT is a third-pary firmware for a wide variety of routers based on a Broadcom or Atheros chip reference design
that extend the functionality of those routers in a variety of ways. It is open source and released under the GNU General Public License (an
open source licence). Among its features is the ability to provide you statistics on your bandwidth consumption, etc. It has a long list
of supported hardware, including routers from Linksys, D-link, Netgear, and so on (too long to list here).

This firmware is for Broadcom-based routers like Linksys WRT54G/GL/GS and Buffalo WHR-G54S/WHR-HP-G54. Among its features is a bandwidth
monitor, advanced access restrictions, raised limits on P2P connections, the ability to run custom scripts, etc. You can see a graph of
your bandwidth usage, check the speed, etc.

If you're willing to set up a PC to be a dedicated gateway to the Internet for the others in your house, pfSense is a complete operating
system (using FreeBSD) complete with firewall
and routing software. Among its many features and extensive reporting options is the ability to monitor the network usage for all computers
connected to the Internet through it.